


mistakes were made

by Innocenzo



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-26 09:50:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19765714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innocenzo/pseuds/Innocenzo
Summary: Michelle Jones had moved on from Peter Parker’s double life when it became clear that it was too much for her to handle.But suddenly, she finds herself being pulled back into the fray without permission and she finds herself caring more than she had ever before.---Or: Harley's an asshole.





	1. Chapter 1

“Do you ever check your fucking phone?!”

Michelle squinted at the accusatory tone of the man in front of her. One who had strolled into the campus diner, exuding an air of arrogance, only a moment ago.

“Get up, we’re leaving.”

He grasped her elbow tightly. She cocked an eyebrow and spared a glance at the group she was with: her date and his friends.

Out of context, she knew that this looked horrifying to not only her group, but also to the other patrons in the diner who had fallen silent. That it probably seemed as though she was being manhandled by an abusive ex-boyfriend or something.

But he wasn’t her ex-boyfriend.

No, he was her ex-boyfriend’s asshole brother (well, in every sense of the word but in blood).

She ripped her arm out of his hold and glared at him.

A glare that made wiser men than him wilt like a dainty flower.

A glare that caused the group she was with to raise eyebrows and breathe sharply.

A glare that caused her date’s best friend to hiss in his ear, not very subtly, about being careful to avoid getting on _her bad side_.

But not him.

Never him.

“It’s cute that you think I’d go anywhere with you,” she said apathetically, putting on her most indifferent tone.

“ _ **Michelle**_.” He growled, unimpressed and annoyed.

And she flinched.

Not because he used her name, because, quite frankly, she had never and would never give him permission to call her _MJ_.

... He called her MJ regardless.

Asshole.

But because he only ever called her Michelle, when _he_ was in deep shit.

Otherwise, it was only ever wisecrack names that referenced her to pop culture or some other bullshit. “A Tony Stark™ trait,” she had been told fondly by Pepper Potts. She had stopped herself from rolling her eyes that day, but only because she didn’t want to come across as rude in front of her idol.

Out of almost muscle memory, she flipped her phone up on the table and noted the multitude of missed calls and texts from _his_ friends and family that had come through in the past hour or so.

Her heart somehow managed to simultaneously drop to her stomach and lodge itself in her throat.

If she wasn’t a regular yogi, her neck would have surely cracked under the force and speed of the change in direction she made.

“W-What’s going on?”

She hated the way her voice stammered, croacked and cracked.

It always did when it came to _him_.

The worry was constant.

The anxiety was incessant.

Her eyes flickered back down again to the texts from Ned, Shuri, Happy, May, Wanda, Pepper and Flash(?!).

The notifications list kept growing as the Barton children joined the conversation on the group chat they had between their generation: _Mistakes Were Made_.

Yeah. 

You can blame Cooper Barton for _that_ group name. 

She tried to leave the group when she broke up with him, but the others had only added her back in seconds later. It was a leave-add cycle ten times over before she took the hint that she was a part of them, regardless of her relationship status. She refrained from contributing to the group over the past year though, it felt wrong, somehow.

Though her silence only encouraged the others to message her privately and this act, somehow, made them closer than ever before. Making her someone beyond just his high-school sweetheart.

Her phone was going crazy, unable to keep up with the incoming messages. Keeping her breath steady, she clicked on Ned’s notification thread as the texts opened up on her home screen.

* * *

 **Ned Leeds 8:24PM**  
SOS F.O.S.

* * *

**Ned Leeds 8:24PM**  
You have missed a call from Ned Leeds.

* * *

**Ned Leeds 8:25PM**  
MJ!!

* * *

**Ned Leeds 8:25PM**  
PICK UP!!!!

* * *

**Ned Leeds 8:30PM**  
You have a missed call from Ned Leeds.

* * *

**Ned Leeds 8:46PM**  
Are you ignoring me as well now??

* * *

**Ned Leeds 8:57PM**  
MJ  
We have a London 24 level situation  
Please pick up

* * *

Her heart sunk even lower. And dammit were her eyes watering?

“Where is he?” She demanded, as she stuffed her phone into her pocket and shuffled out of the booth, ignoring the protests of her date and friends.

She didn’t like his silence.

Because he was an asshole.

He spoke like an asshole.

And like an asshole, he usually filled every second of silence with one-sided dialogue, very much like his brother and sister. She briefly wondered if it was a Stark thing.

So his silence ...

The lump in her throat grew larger.

“ _Harley_ ,” she hissed warningly, desperate for something from him.

“---We don’t know.”

His voice sounded like an echo.

Distant and far and repeating the same phrase again and again in her head.

He gripped her elbow again, less forceful this time, and more so to hold her up because she apparently had started swaying.

“What to you mean, you don’t know?”

Her tone was low and dangerous and somehow, _somehow_ , through the fog, she managed to hold back her building hysteria.

“He went off grid.”

Harley’s eyes narrowed, brimming with anger that she knew was not targeted towards her.

“The fucking twat!” He cursed.

Not for the first time, MJ concurred, though she would never admit that to him.

She would willingly jump into a vat of bubbling acid before she ever told Harley Keener that she agreed with him.

“We gotta go Red,” Harley muttered, tugging at her elbow.

 _ **Red**_.

She hated that nickname.

Because it was a reminder of the phase she went through during Senior Year when she dyed her hair and Harley took up calling her the colour of her curls.

It was a time when things were ... simpler.

Where: she was in the honeymoon phase of her relationship. When: she thought she could handle the expectations and responsibilities that came with dating a superhero.

The Next Tony Stark, they called him.

And then came a time when he had been shot, slashed and tasered in front of her by some crazy fucktard with eight arms and she had been covered in his blood.

Harley had rushed into the Medbay seconds after she finally sat down, numb with shock and shaking with fear. He had taken one look at her covered in _his_ blood and puked into a conveniently available trashcan.

She dyed her hair back to brown the next day.

He never called her Red as a joke after that.

He only ever used that nickname when he was serious, as serious as the amount of blood soaked into her hoodie and jeans, dried and matted in her red hair and stained on the skin of her hands had been.

“The ragtag team, they’re at _Pep’s_. Ned’s _looking_ into it. _Popeye_ is running every---“ Harley breathed sharply through his nose, controlling the information he was dropping and evidently his emotions while he was at it. “---it’s been 72 hours.”

MJ’s eyes widened.

“ **72?!** ” She screeched, no longer pretending to be nonchalant. “It took you _72 fucking hours_ to come and get me?!”

Harley’s pale blue eyes were stormy: darkened with anger and judgement as he regarded her with disdain.

“You made it pretty clear to him that you wanted no part of it.”

It was an accusation.

 _Ooof_.

That was below the belt.

But fair, she conceded in her mind, because it was the truth.

“That--that’s not...”

She had no excuse.

No explanation.

Because this was exactly what she had meant when she broke up with him.

She sagged, feeling boneless, as the weight of her actions and final words to him inescapably sunk in.

“I--I _never_ \---this was never---“

She took staggered breaths.

Was she hyperventilating?

Because that’s what this felt like.

And it was through the realisation that she still cared.

She would always care.

She couldn’t stop caring, no matter how much she tried to fool herself into believing it.

“Alright, that’s enough!”

She heard her date, Harry, demand.

She thinks he has finally stood up, literally not metaphorically, that is. But she wasn’t sure, because it all felt like vague confusion in the midst of her anxiety-induced daze.

“Oh fuck off Osborn,” Harley sneered, as he pulled her into his arms.

She tucked herself under his chin, fisting the material of his expensive leather jacket as she breathed in the familiar scent of his cologne.

The same one that _he_ used, but it smelt slightly different on Harley, skin chemicals reactions and all that...

Peter used to steal this aftershave from Harley's closet on their special date nights at the start of their senior year. 

Earthy. 

Grounding. 

Heady. 

Masculine. 

Intoxicating. 

And when he realised just how much she loved this scent on him, he started wearing it everyday. 

It wasn't as comforting on Harley, it didn't have the same affect on her, but it would do.

She gulped back tears as she realised it had been a nearly a year since she last smelt this fragrance. 

As she regulated her breathing, she briefly wondered how he knew who her date was.

Sure, he was the heir to the Osborn Empire, but, Harry made a fact of keeping his nose down and his hair out of the press.

Though, she supposed, it shouldn’t really surprise her that Harley, and probably Ned by extension, kept tabs on her for _his_ sake.

“Took your sweet fucking time to come to this realisation,” Harley commented as her breathing slowed down.

“Fuck you.”

Harley snorted, as though he was amused by her.

Seriously.

 _Fuck him_.

What an asshole.

“We gotta go,” she muttered into his chest.

“Yup.”

“You already have a ride waiting outside, don’t you.”

“Toothbrush 'n tampons packed and all.”

She could practically _hear_ his smirk.

“You’re an asshole.”

“Tell me something I don’t already know doll.”

There was a lilt of his southern drawl in his tone as he spoke with a bit more warmth in his tone.

She pulled away from him, but allowed him to keep an arm around her shoulder to ground her.

“We gotta go,” she repeated, nodding.

“Michelle, you can’t be serious?” Harry questioned, his face scrunched up with confusion.

Her classmates wore similar expressions.

“Michelle, who is he?” asked Anna.

She ignored the growing smirk on Harley’s face as it quickly became apparent that she didn’t allow any of them to call her MJ.

She rolled her eyes.

“Family emergency,” she muttered, as she pulled out her purse from her bag and put down a few bills to cover her portion, despite Harry’s faint protests.

There was a glance shared between the company she was with, towards both her and Harley.

“What is he? Like, your _brother_?” James asked; his left eyebrow cocked and face scrunched with disbelief as he took in their contrasting skin tones.

Michelle looked back at Harley, who was entirely focussed on her now; his anger-sparked, intelligent eyes were glowing with growing mischief and awareness.

 _Her brother_.

She, who had disassociated parents. No extended family by blood to care about her. Yet here he stood. Embodying everything that you learnt as a child about family and kinship and unconditional love.

“Yeah,” she muttered, hating herself as she did so for how soft her voice was, “... _something like that_.”

The moment was broken by the glow of her phone, that she now deeply regretted putting on silent mode.

“ _ **72 hours, Leeds**_?” She growled as she picked up the phone with barely a greeting.

The volume setting on her phone was loud enough for those around her to hear the muffled noise of someone gulping, stuttering and apologising with deep regret.

Harley started pushing her towards the door by the shoulder and she allowed him to as she focussed her energy on drilling into Ned.

So, she missed it when Harley slipped on his STARK glasses, similar to E.D.I.T.H. but run by H.O.M.E.R. (Heuristically Operative Matrix Emulation Rostrum) instead.

Though if you asked MJ, she would tell you that the AI was named H.O.M.E.R. out of Harley’s childish obsession with The Simpsons. There was no convincing her otherwise.

And she also missed the arrogant bastard flipping the bird at Harry Osborn.

Which then led to this realisation amongst her college mates that she _did hear_.

“Fuck, isn’t that the guy who works for Pepper Potts at Stark Industries?”

Well. They didn’t get into Harvard for no reason.

“What? You mean the one who is being groomed to take over the R&D department?”

MJ turned around at that, hanging up her call.

Of course they wouldn’t recognise Harley up close but would get the picture when he put on the glasses that gave off a fuck boy energy and radiated the aura of Tony Stark.

The cocky smirk grew wider on Harley’s face, the only indication that he took some sort of perverted amusement out of this situation, despite the doom and gloom that hovered over them like a dark cloud.

“How does she know him?” She heard Anna say.

“Her ex. Peter Parker,” Harry replied sounding aloof yet resentful as he finally put the pieces together.

MJ glared at Harley as he opened the diner door for her.

In the far distance, she could see and not hear a STARK Jet hovering over a field.

In the near distance, she spotted Harley’s motorbike.

“What?” He shrugged, as he followed her out the door, handing her a nano-helmet earpiece before he slipped on his own.

She climbed on, situating herself behind him, ignoring the prickle of her skin, knowing she was being watched by all the diners. No fucking surprise after the show they had put on.

“Wouldn’t be fair to lead the boy on,” he quipped.

MJ’s growl was drowned out by the sound of the engine as Harley kicked it to life and drove in the direction of the hovering jet at an ungodly speed.

Seriously.

 _What an asshole_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had waaaay too much fun writing Harley and MJ in this and is it weird that halfway through it I was convincing myself out of making them a couple instead?
> 
> Let me know what you just think of this chapter!


	2. Chapter 2

Harley carefully eyed the pale girl sat next to him as FRIDAY flew the plane back to New York.

Harley had never been too fond of Peter’s cynical high-school girlfriend. He'd found her personality was too abrasive for his liking and that said something coming from _him_. Or perhaps, he'd just had this foresight that she would break Peter's heart that subconsciously stopped him from growing fond of her. 

Following The Blip, Tony’s death had remained as a dark cloud over their heads and Pepper had been doing everything to persuade him into staying in New York and join Stark Industries. It was around the time Peter went off on his Europe trip --- when he found out that he was not graduating with a 4.0 average from MIT.

“It doesn’t matter if your GPA is slightly less than our requirements,” said Pepper, “Tony would have wanted this for you.”

He hadn't believed her.

Harley hated being a charity case above anything else in the world.

He didn’t want anyone’s pity.

He hadn’t wanted any help when Tony turned up at his door, the second he found out that both Harley’s mother and sister had been 'Vanished' as they had called it then. 

So he convinced himself that he certainly didn’t want to be any part of Tony’s legacy.

But it had been Morgan’s big, bug-like eyes, filled with tears, as she heard him firmly tell Pepper that he was going back to Tennessee that made him pause and stutter.

Because in that moment Morgan reminded him of the sister he lost, of the family that would no longer be coming back.

Yes, Professor Hulk’s snap worked.

But he hadn’t accounted for the unfortunate positioning of life when he snapped them back to the exact same place they had been, five years ago.

They had been crossing a road, the day they disappeared, Sheriff Hops told him as he led him to their bodies at the morgue. 

' _A car crashed into them ... They died on impact ..._ '

Five years later after the first snap, Harley Keener had to bury his mother and sister again.

( _At least it wasn't an empty coffin this time._ )

Then he found out that Tony Stark, the father figure he had established a strong relationship with during The Blip period, had sacrificed himself.

The universe was a sadistic bitch as far as he was concerned.

And so, after taking one long look into Morgan’s eyes, he stayed.

The events that occurred after that decision was all one big blur as far as he could remember.

Suddenly, he was no longer an orphan, but a person with an extended family that reached Wakanda. He had a whole host of super-‘cousins’ and ‘aunts’ and ‘uncles’ -- the wet dream of probably every Avengers fanboy and fangirl out there. It had been overwhelming to say the least. 

But it had been Peter Parker and Morgan Stark who had broken down his walls.

Because they understood.

They knew what it was like to have Tony in your life as a mentor---as a father figure---and they knew the soft, broken man behind the cocky public persona.

They all had lost something significant.

But they had also gained something even more significant.

They had gained each other and they were intelligent enough to hold on tight and silently vow to never let go.

Harley found a kindred spirit in Peter, a younger brother in everything but blood as far as he was concerned.

And Harley found redemption in Morgan. He swore on Tony's grave that he would keep that little girl safe, to protect her better than he had Abbie.

But with Peter came a whole new array of clusterfuckkery that he genuinely struggled to untangle.

In another universe, Peter and he would have been around the same age. Legally, the papers showed that they were only 10 months apart in age. But the reality was that Peter was 5 years and 10 months younger following The Blip.

Harley took it all in stride.

He embraced Peter’s high school woes with fervour and helped him shoulder the burden of his super-heroic activities. He found peace in being needed by his siblings.

Because when he officially met Peter, the boy had gone on that Europe trip, had his mind raped and returned with a snarky girlfriend, and a legal battle to boot.

He had been a mess. 

**Parker v The Daily Bugle** had been a pain in Pepper’s arse, and a huge legal bill for Stark Industries, for the entirety of Peter’s senior year in high school.

The high school kids at Peter's school hadn't helped the situation by adding fuel the fire as they recalled every single one of Peter’s convenient disappearances during the times when Spider-Man made an appearance.

But in true Stark style, Peter had legally been cleared of all charges and Peter had maintained his anonymity as Spider-Man after some carefully crafted PR stunts where _he_ had donned the Spider-Man suit while Peter was out in public. Debunking that conspiracy was probably the most fun Harley had ever had and all entirely Morgan’s idea.

He should have spotted _that_ as the first sign of the type of troublemaker Morgan would be as she grew up.

Pepper now had a habit of blaming any of Morgan’s misdeeds on Harley and on the rare occasion, Peter.

“The devil on her shoulder,” Pepper claimed.

Peter would blush, and apologise. Harley, however, protested loudly every time Pepper made that claim; but the large, proud, smug smirk on his face would give him away.

Morgan could be a handful on some days than Peter.

Because playing therapist to a young superhero was _undeniably_ easier to handle than a girl bordering on the edge of adolescence.

Peter usually sought him out when he wanted to pick his brain about some edited formulation for his webbing or upgrade ideas for his suit -- because Harley’s GPA had been imperfect not due to his lack of intelligence but rather, credited to his abject laziness. The other times were when he wanted advice on how to woo MJ, or when he had a particularly bad patrol and had been injured. (Because Peter was too much of a wimp to head back to May or Pepper during those nights, for sheer fear of their wrath at his carelessness.)

And Harley definitely didn’t mind it when Peter swung around just hang out, not because he missed his mentor, Tony, but because he missed _Harley_. Because, somehow, somewhere along the line, during the summer of '24 as Peter hid at the lakehouse and Stark Tower from the media hounding him, Harley had become an important part of Peter’s life.

And by extension, Peter’s nerd best-friend, Ned and girlfriend, MJ, became a constant in Harley's life too.

Right until the day she broke up with him.

* * *

Harley was comfortable in dealing with crying little girls: Abbie had given him many years of practice that he was practically a pro at it with Morgan.

He also grew used to Peter’s bad days: the days when he remembered where he had been during The Blip, because his Peter Tingle™ (god bless May Parker for coining that term) made him very self-aware. The days when the expectation of being the next Tony Stark had been too much for Peter. The days leading up to the trials in court when Peter had been all but a wreck. Harley had handled all of those situations like an expert, truly living up to the title of big brother.

Then one wretched day, Peter had swung into Stark Tower, the summer following his first year at MIT, undetected and silent. Harley hadn't even been aware Peter was back until he received Ned’s frantic texts. He and Morgan had found Peter in his room after employing FRIDAY’s services.

He sat in a corner with his back against a wall, red-rimmed eyes, unseeing and all kinds of pathetic and Harley had never hated her more.

And he hated the fact that her reasoning was ... well, reasonable.

But, he argued with the rational side of his brain, she knew exactly what she was signing up for when she started dating him. She already knew Peter Parker was Spider-Man before she entered a committed relationship with him. So fuck her, he concluded, for deciding that it was too much to handle. 

And while Harley had wanted to roll his eyes and tell Peter to stop being a pussy about it ... he knew that this wasn’t just a breakup for Peter.

Because Michelle Jones had been _it_ for Peter Parker.

The second he saw his brother’s heartbreak, manifesting to the point where he didn't want to perform Spider-Man patrols that summer, Harley Keener knew that there would never be another for Peter.

Except, as he watched her now, on the STARKPad, reading the intelligence they had gathered on Peter’s altercation with the _Green Goblin_ before he had dropped off the grid, he wondered if she _knew?_

He controlled the flinch that startled him out of his musings when she chucked the STARKPad onto the seat opposite her with a level of violence that he was used to from her.

The ghostly echoes of his bruised biceps and shins from her punches and kicks from back in the day could attest to that. 

“It’s just--just bureaucratic jargon,” she hissed.

A hand buried its way through her curls, and clenched the strands with agitation.

Her newfound frustration matched the mounting hill of resentment and disgruntlement that had been growing inside of Harley since he found out that Peter had gone missing.

But he refrained from saying something snide.

Because this was the most emotional he had ever seen Michelle Jones, the-sarcastic-activist-extraordinaire.

It was unsettling, to say the least and he didn't know how to deal with it. 

He didn't have a handle on her like he did with Peter and Morgan. And goddammit! Why wasn't there a handbook on how to deal with emotional women who were _clearly_ still in love with your brother?!

“We’re---they’re all working on it,” he reassured instead, forcing a composed inflection to his voice.

“Well that’s not good enough!” She snapped.

He gripped the arms of his seat tightly, and closed his eyes, and focussed heavily on regulating his breath to steady his instinct to snap back at her.

Two volatile, violent people 30,000 feet in the air would only result in a disaster --- a disaster that the family wouldn’t be able to handle right now --- he reminded himself.

“S-Sorry,” his eyes popped open, and he openly gaped at her. “I shouldn’t snap at you.”

Her eyes remained scrunched shut as she pinched the bridge of her nose between her forefinger and thumb and so she blessedly missed the single moment in history when she caught him off guard. 

“I’m just --- **_I miss him_**. And the last time he tried to reach out to me I screamed. I screamed at him to leave me _alone_ \---“ she gasped her words out, verging on the edge of another panic attack and Harley remained frozen in his seat because this was more than he and Ned had ever gotten out of Peter.

And damn did curiosity kill the cat.

“A-and now, now I may never see---“

Harley’s sharp intake of breath stopped her from finishing her sentence.

“ _Michelle_ ,” he ground out after a short moment of silence had passed between them.

Her eyes flew open and she looked at him, her eyes brimmed with such raw pain and regret that he had to look away.

“He’s going to be okay,” he reassured. “He’s fine. We’re going to find him and he’s going to be okay,” he repeated, as he stared out ahead into the starless sky as they entered the smog that eternally lined the New York skyline.

Though at this this point, he wasn’t sure if he was reassuring her or himself.

“He’s going to be fine,” she echoed, as if reading his thoughts just as FRIDAY landed the jet on the landing strip on Avengers Tower.

They wasted no time in exiting the aircraft, and only grabbed for the necessities on their way out. 

Harley caught sight of Pepper’s strawberry blonde hair fluttering in the breeze as she walked towards them; with Happy and May a couple of steps behind her.

The shadows of the rest of their extended family and friends bustling with action from within created its own silhouette against the backdrop of Stark Tower.

“Oh sweetheart, you’re home,” Pepper greeted as she pulled Michelle into a hug.

Harley’s tensed shoulders dropped somewhat, as the tiniest bit of relief entered his system.

Yes.

They were home.

And they were going to find Peter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts?


	3. Chapter 3

“Harley!”

Michelle stumbled backwards as a small girl rushed past her and threw her arms around Keener’s waist.

Harley huffed out a laugh and pulled the girl up into his arms, wincing at her weight as he did so.

“What’s up Morgie Moo?” Harley asked as the little girl cuddled up to him.

“Just missed you--“ she sniffled into the crook of his neck.

Her heart skipped a beat with sadness as a frown pulled Harley’s fixed smirk downwards.

“She wanted to wait up for you,” Pepper muttered, running a hand through her daughter’s hair as she squeezed the life out of Harley with her hug.

“MJ!”

The call pulled Michelle’s attention away from a scene she had often witnessed when she had been dating Peter.

“ _Ned_ ,” Michelle sighed, finding comfort in a familiar friendly face.

The two friends hugged and Ned squeezed her shoulder reassuringly as he stepped away.

“Are you going to say hi to Michelle, Morgan?” Pepper encouraged.

Michelle’s heartbeat heightened as the seven year old peeked at her from Harley’s shoulder, frowned and shook her head negatively.

The grimace on Harley’s face deepened as Pepper looked up at Morgan with disapproval. Ned shuffled his weight from foot to foot as the awkward tension in the room grew.

Michelle spoke out before the girl was scolded for her behaviour, “It’s alright, it’s been a while since Momo last saw me. It’s not her fault.”

It’s mine.

She finished in her head.

The room that had been humming with soft conversations fell silent because they all heard the two words, she hadn’t said out loud, ring loudly in the air. Feeling the embarrassment creep up her chest and neck, she kept her head down, allowing her frizzy, curly hair to hide her red face.

“Morganasaurus Rex! I think it’s way past your bedtime...” A teasing voice cut through the air like a hot knife through butter.

Wanda walked across the room to Harley and Morgan.

“No,” Morgan whined, hiding her face in Harley’s neck again.

“Morgan,” Pepper warned with her tone.

“The deal was that you could stay up until Harley got back,” Wanda carried the same teasing tone. “I promise to read you two stories tonight.”

The bribe was enough for Morgan to peek at Wanda. The youngest took one glance at her disappointed mother and scrambled out of Harvey’s arms and into Wanda’s.

She admired the wisps of red that assisted Wanda with Morgan’s weight and controlled her instinct to raise her eyebrows as a soft smile passed between Harley and Wanda.

Huh.

She wouldn’t have put them together.

But as Wanda moved away, nodding at Pepper’s thankful gaze, she caught her eye and a flash of recognition slipped between them.

_**I’ve been seeing someone.** _

_**It’s been a while since Vision.** _

_**He makes me feel ... happy.** _

Michelle had pestered her for details of who the mystery person was, but that was one piece of information Wanda had refused to share.

**_I’m not sure if you’ll approve._ **

She had texted back:

**_Well as long as he’s not a super villain or has two penises or something._ **

“Have you had dinner?” May offered, as she led her further into the room with a hand on her back.

“I’m not uh--I’ve had dinner,” said Michelle as she went for the easy reply.

She ignored Harley’s gaze bearing holes into the back of her head because they both knew that he had picked her up before the waitress had brought over her main.

But he was wise enough to keep his mouth shut.

“Hey Michelle,” Colonel Rhodes greeted with a wave of his hand.

Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes nodded their heads in acknowledgement.

“Hey Smart Girl,” Professor Hulk grinned, shuffling his disabled right arm in an attempt to wave at her whilst juggling multiple items in his hands.

On the main circular table in the middle of the room, holograms of Shuri and Nebula rotated. Rocket, Scott Lang, Hope Van Dyke Clint Barton and Nick Fury’s images remained greyed out, clearly offline.

“Hey Mary Jane,” Shuri smirked.

MJ flipped the bird at the Princess.

“ _Earthlings_ ,” Nebula’s hologram murmured with disgust.

“What’s the update?” Harley asked, tired of the smatterings of stupid nicknames and greeting as he threw himself into a chair and kicked his legs up onto the table.

“This is state of the art equipment, take your feet off,” Rhodey grumbled as he swatted Harley’s legs off.

“Not much,” Sam added. “Pretty much in the same place we were before you left.”

“We’re about to head over to Devil’s Kitchen, see if some of our small time players have heard anything,” said Bucky.

“Barton’s visiting our fellow regenerating degenerate---“

“--that guy gives me the creeps,” Happy shivered.

“Shuri and Nebula are running every satellite in this galaxy and surrounding to see if they can pick up anything ... _alien_ ,” Ned whispered helpfully.

“Who’s the regenerating degenerate?” Michelle whispered back.

“ _Deadpool_ ,” Ned replied with a little bit of awe and a lot of fear in his voice. “Ant-Man and the Wasp are running ops in London with Nick Fury. That's cool right? S.H.I.E.L.D’s been a bit low on numbers since ... you know.”

“All of this, and no sign of Peter?” Michelle couldn’t help but ask.

Once again, it appeared that though everyone was incredibly tuned into her than she had thought as there was a collective tensing of muscles.

“His suit's been taken down,” said Professor Hulk, as he cupped the back of his neck with his good hand and walked closer to the table.

He flicked at the screen and a greyed-out signal timestamp popped up somewhere over Brooklyn.

“That’s the last alert we received from KAREN **.** She’s been radio silent since and F.R.I.D.A.Y. can’t patch through to her.”

“Best case scenario,” Sam said as he stood up, “the suit's circuits were fried by an EMP or something and the kid is just lying in a dumpster somewhere unconscious.”

“ _That’s_ your best case scenario?” Bucky scowled reproachingly as May gasped and put a hand against the left side of her chest. Where, Michelle was sure, her heart was drumming against her ribcage as hard and fast as her own.

“I’m just saying,” Sam shrugged, though he looked slightly regretful as he glanced at May’s pale face.

“Man, I don’t even want to hear your worst case scenario,” Rhodey cut in as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

Sam and Bucky walked over to the other side of the room and picked up their armour.

“We’ll keep you updated,” Bucky saluted with two of his fingers before they left.

There was a resounding silence in the room following the departure of Captain America and White Wolf.

Harley spun in his chair three times, before Happy stuck out a leg and stopped him. He clearly felt as useless and helpless as she did.

“I think it’s best if we all get some rest,” Pepper decided, as she stood up. “Yes...” she agreed, nodding, as if confirming with herself that was the best choice, “Yes. None of us are any good to Peter if we’re not at our best. It will be a while before any of them return. F.R.I.D.A.Y. will alert us if there are any changes. Right F.R.I.D.A.Y?”

“ _Of course, boss_ ,” the AI reassured.

Pepper nodded, reaffirming her decision.

"Peace!" Shuri signed with her fingers before her icon turned grey. 

"I'll be in touch," said Nebula before she too signed off. 

“Come on, I’ll show you to your room,” Ned offered as a distraction.

Though it was not needed as slowly everyone started filtering out.

But on her way out she heard May ask: “Harley? Happy? Are you not going to bed?”

“I’m not that tired, I think I’ll stay up a little while longer,” she heard Harley reply.

“I’ll stay with the kid, May, don’t worry about us,” the man who had been introduced to her as Spider-Man’s employee in London a couple years ago added.

Now he was engaged to Peter's aunt. 

Time really does fly. 

Ned squeezed her hand as she felt an overwhelming sense of anxiety fill her again.

She sent him a weak smile, pretending that she was okay, but knew as soon as she did that he didn’t buy it. He'd known her for too long. 

“We’ll find him, you’ll see,” he insisted earnestly.

 _Yeah_.

That’s what they all kept saying but none of them seemed to have a clue! 

They were exhausting every avenue possible, she could see that, but something in her gut told her that they were all going to come back empty handed. 

_So ... what now?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your lovely comments and kudos!


End file.
